" After a short crop in 2000, this vintage brought excellent yields at the Dusi Ranch. Adding to that abundance, Ridge was able to harvest almost the entire vineyard. Fire, warm summer weather ripened the grapes, block by block, over the first two weeks of September. The wine fermented to dryness on its natural yeasts. For continuous extraction of color and tannin, skins and seeds were held beneath the surface of the juice in the majority of fermentors. After completing a natural malolactic fermentation, the wine spent twelve months in fifty-three-gallon, air-dried American oak barrels; a quarter of these were new. This spicy, readily accessible zinfandel is enjoyable now, and will be at its best over the next five years."